“You must have found it very lonely and strange when you came here first.”
“Yes. At first I thought I should die — but I do not mind it now. I have made friends with the sea; it has taught me a great deal. There is a kind of inspiration in the sea. When one listens to its never-ceasing murmur afar out there, always sounding at midnight and midday, one’s soul goes out to meet Eternity. Sometimes it gives me so much pleasure that it is almost pain.”
She stopped abruptly.
“I don’t know why I am talking to you like this.”
“You are a strange girl, Magdalen. Have you no other companion than the sea?”
“No. Why should I wish to have? I shall not be here long.”
Elliott’s face contracted with a spasm of pain.
“You are not going away, Magdalen?”
“Yes — in the fall. I have my own living to earn, you know. I am very poor. Uncle and Aunt are very kind, but I cannot consent to burden them any longer than I can help.”
A sigh that was almost a moan broke from Esterbrook Elliott’s lips.
“You must not go away, Magdalen. You must stay here — with me!”
“You forget yourself,” she said proudly. “How dare you speak to me so? Have you forgotten Miss Lesley? Or are you a traitor to us both?”
Esterbrook made no answer. He bowed his pale, miserable face before her, self-condemned.
The breast of the bay sparkled with its countless gems like the breast of a fair woman. The shores were purple and amethystine in the distance. Far out, bluish, phantom-like sails clustered against the pallid horizon. The dory danced like a feather over the ripples. They were close under the shadow of Chapel Point.
Marian Lesley waited in vain for her lover that afternoon. When he came at last in the odorous dusk of the June night she met him on the acacia-shadowed verandah with cold sweetness. Perhaps some subtle woman-instinct whispered to her where and how he had spent the afternoon, for she offered him no kiss, nor did she ask him why he had failed to come sooner.
His eyes lingered on her in the dim light, taking in every detail of her sweet womanly refinement and loveliness, and with difficulty he choked back a groan. Again he asked himself what madness had come over him, and again for an answer rose up the vision of Magdalen Crawford’s face as he had seen it that day, crimsoning beneath his gaze.
It was late when he left. Marian watched him out of sight, standing under the acacias. She shivered as with a sudden chill. “I feel as I think Vashti must have felt,” she murmured aloud, “when, discrowned and unqueened, she crept out of the gates of Shushan to hide her broken heart. I wonder if Esther has already usurped my sceptre. Has that girl at the Cove, with her pale, priestess-like face and mysterious eyes, stolen his heart from me? Perhaps not, for it may never have been mine. I know that Esterbrook Elliott will be true to the letter of his vows to me, no matter what it may cost him. But I want no pallid shadow of the love that belongs to another. The hour of abdication is at hand, I fear. And what will be left for throneless Vashti then?”
Esterbrook Elliott, walking home through the mocking calm of the night, fought a hard battle with himself.
He was face to face with the truth at last — the bitter knowledge that he had never loved Marian Lesley, save with a fond, brotherly affection, and that he did love Magdalen Crawford with a passion that threatened to sweep before it every vestige of his honour and loyalty.
He had seen her but three times — and his throbbing heart lay in the hollow of her cold white hand.
He shut his eyes and groaned. What madness. What unutterable folly! He was not free — he was bound to another by every cord of honour and self-respect. And, even were he free, Magdalen Crawford would be no fit wife for him — in the eyes of the world, at least. A girl from the Cove — a girl with little education and no social standing — aye! but he loved her.
He groaned again and again in his misery. Afar down the slope the bay waters lay like an inky strip and the distant, murmurous plaint of the sea came out of the stillness of the night; the lights at the Cove glimmered faintly.
In the week that followed he went to the Cove every day. Sometimes he did not see Magdalen; at other times he did. But at the end of the week he had conquered in the bitter, heart-crushing struggle with himself. If he had weakly given way to the first mad sweep of a new passion, the strength of his manhood reasserted itself at last. Faltering and wavering were over, though there was passionate pain in his voice when he said at last, “I am not coming back again, Magdalen.”
They were standing in the shadow of the pine-fringed point that ran out to the left of the Cove. They had been walking together along the shore, watching the splendour of the sea sunset that flamed and glowed in the west, where there was a sea of mackerel clouds, crimson and amber tinted, with long, ribbon-like strips of apple-green sky between. They had walked in silence, hand in hand, as children might have done, yet with the stir and throb of a mighty passion seething in their hearts.
Magdalen turned as Esterbrook spoke, and looked at him in a long silence. The bay stretched out before them, tranced and shimmering; a few stars shone down through the gloom of dusk. Right across the translucent greens and roses and blues of the west hung a dark, unsightly cloud, like the blurred outline of a monstrous bat. In the dim, reflected light the girl’s mournful face took on a weird, unearthly beauty. She turned her eyes from Esterbrook Elliott’s set white face to the radiant gloom of the sea.
“That is best,” she answered at last, slowly.
“Best — yes! Better that we had never met! I love you — you know it — words are idle between us. I never loved before — I thought I did. I made a mistake and I must pay the penalty of that mistake. You understand me?”
“I understand,” she answered simply.
“I do not excuse myself — I have been weak and cowardly and disloyal. But I have conquered myself — I will be true to the woman to whom I am pledged. You and I must not meet again. I will crush this madness to death. I think I have been delirious ever since that day I saw you first, Magdalen. My brain is clearer now. I see my duty and I mean to do it at any cost. I dare not trust myself to say more. Magdalen, I have much for which to ask your forgiveness.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said steadily. “I have been as much to blame as you. If I had been as resolute as I ought to have been — if I had sent you away the second time as I did the first — this would not have come to pass. I have been weak too, and I deserve to atone for my weakness by suffering. There is only one path open to us. Esterbrook, good-bye.” Her voice quivered with an uncontrollable spasm of pain, but the misty, mournful eyes did not swerve from his. The man stepped forward and caught her in his arms.
“Magdalen, good-bye, my darling. Kiss me once — only once — before I go.”
She loosened his arms and stepped back proudly.
“No! No man kisses my lips unless he is to be my husband. Good-bye, dear.”
He bowed his head silently and went away, looking back not once, else he might have seen her kneeling on the damp sand weeping noiselessly and passionately.
Marian Lesley looked at his pale, determined face the next evening and read it like an open book.
She had grown paler herself; there were purple shadows under the sweet violet eyes that might have hinted of her own sleepless nights.
She greeted him calmly, holding out a steady, white hand of welcome. She saw the traces of the struggle through which he had passed and knew that he had come off victor.
The knowledge made her task a little harder. It would have been easier to let slip the straining cable than to cast it from her when it lay unresistingly in her hand.
For an instant her heart thrilled with an unutterably sweet hope. Might he not forget in time? Need she snap in twain the weakened bond between them after all? Perhaps she might win back her lost sceptre, yet if —
Womanly pride throttled the struggling hope. No divided allegiance, no hol
low semblance of queenship for her!
Her opportunity came when Esterbrook asked with grave earnestness if their marriage might not be hastened a little — could he not have his bride in August? For a fleeting second Marian closed her eyes and the slender hands, lying among the laces in her lap, clasped each other convulsively.
Then she said quietly, “Sometimes I have thought, Esterbrook, that it might be better — if we were never married at all.”
Esterbrook turned a startled face upon her.
“Not married at all! Marian, what do you mean?”
“Just what I say. I do not think we are as well suited to each other after all as we have fancied. We have loved each other as brother and sister might — that is all. I think it will be best to be brother and sister forever — nothing more.”
Esterbrook sprang to his feet.
“Marian, do you know what you are saying? You surely cannot have heard — no one could have told you—”
“I have heard nothing,” she interrupted hurriedly. “No one has told me anything. I have only said what I have been thinking of late. I am sure we have made a mistake. It is not too late to remedy it. You will not refuse my request, Esterbrook? You will set me free?”
“Good heavens, Marian!” he said hoarsely. “I cannot realize that you are in earnest. Have you ceased to care for me?” The rigidly locked hands were clasped a little tighter.
“No — I shall always care for you as my friend if you will let me. But I know we could not make each other happy — the time for that has gone by. I would never be satisfied, nor would you. Esterbrook, will you release me from a promise which has become an irksome fetter?”
He looked down on her upturned face mistily. A great joy was surging up in his heart — yet it was mingled with great regret.
He knew — none better — what was passing out of his life, what he was losing when he lost that pure, womanly nature.
“If you really mean this, Marian,” he said slowly, “if you really have come to feel that your truest love is not and never can be mine — that I cannot make you happy — then there is nothing for me to do but to grant your request. You are free.”
“Thank you, dear,” she said gently, as she stood up.
She slipped his ring from her finger and held it out to him. He took it mechanically. He still felt dazed and unreal.
Marian held out her hand.
“Good-night, Esterbrook,” she said, a little wearily. “I feel tired. I am glad you see it all in the same light as I do.”
“Marian,” he said earnestly, clasping the outstretched hand, “are you sure that you will be happy — are you sure that you are doing a wise thing?”
“Quite sure,” she answered, with a faint smile. “I am not acting rashly. I have thought it all over carefully. Things are much better so, dear. We will always be friends. Your joys and sorrows will be to me as my own. When another love comes to bless your life, Esterbrook, I will be glad. And now, good-night. I want to be alone now.”
At the doorway he turned to look back at her, standing in all her sweet stateliness in the twilight duskness, and the keen realization of all he had lost made him bow his head with a quick pang of regret.
Then he went out into the darkness of the summer night.
An hour later he stood alone on the little point where he had parted with Magdalen the night before. A restless night wind was moaning through the pines that fringed the bank behind him; the moon shone down radiantly, turning the calm expanse of the bay into a milk-white sheen.
He took Marian’s ring from his pocket and kissed it reverently. Then he threw it from him far out over the water. For a second the diamond flashed in the moonlight; then, with a tiny splash, it fell among the ripples.
Esterbrook turned his face to the Cove, lying dark and silent in the curve between the crescent headlands. A solitary light glimmered from the low eaves of the Barrett cottage.
Tomorrow, was his unspoken thought, I will be free; to go back to Magdalen.
An Invitation Given on Impulse
It was a gloomy Saturday morning. The trees in the Oaklawn grounds were tossing wildly in the gusts of wind, and sodden brown leaves were blown up against the windows of the library, where a score of girls were waiting for the principal to bring the mail in.
The big room echoed with the pleasant sound of girlish voices and low laughter, for in a fortnight school would close for the holidays, and they were all talking about their plans and anticipations.
Only Ruth Mannering was, as usual, sitting by herself near one of the windows, looking out on the misty lawn. She was a pale, slender girl, with a sad face, and was dressed in rather shabby black. She had no special friend at Oaklawn, and the other girls did not know much about her. If they had thought about it at all, they would probably have decided that they did not like her; but for the most part they simply overlooked her.
This was not altogether their fault. Ruth was poor and apparently friendless, but it was not her poverty that was against her. Lou Scott, who was “as poor as a church mouse,” to quote her own frank admission, was the most popular girl in the seminary, the boon companion of the richest girls, and in demand with everybody. But Lou was jolly and frank and offhanded, while Ruth was painfully shy and reserved, and that was the secret of the whole matter.
There was “no fun in her,” the girls said, and so it came about that she was left out of their social life, and was almost as solitary at Oaklawn as if she had been the only girl there. She was there for the special purpose of studying music, and expected to earn her own living by teaching it when she left. She believed that the girls looked down on her on this account; this was unjust, of course, but Ruth had no idea how much her own coldness and reserve had worked against her.
Across the room Carol Golden was, as usual, the centre of an animated group; Golden Carol as her particular friends sometimes called her, partly because of her beautiful voice, and partly because of her wonderful fleece of golden hair. Carol was one of the seminary pets, and seemed to Ruth Mannering to have everything that she had not.
Presently the mail was brought in, and there was a rush to the table, followed by exclamations of satisfaction or disappointment. In a few minutes the room was almost deserted. Only two girls remained: Carol Golden, who had dropped into a big chair to read her many letters; and Ruth Mannering, who had not received any and had gone silently back to her part of the window.
Presently Carol gave a little cry of delight. Her mother had written that she might invite any friend she wished home with her to spend the holidays. Carol had asked for this permission, and now that it had come was ready to dance for joy. As to whom she would ask, there could be only one answer to that. Of course it must be her particular friend, Maud Russell, who was the cleverest and prettiest girl at Oaklawn, at least so her admirers said. She was undoubtedly the richest, and was the acknowledged “leader.” The girls affectionately called her “Princess,” and Carol adored her with that romantic affection that is found only among school girls. She knew, too, that Maud would surely accept her invitation because she did not intend to go home. Her parents were travelling in Europe, and she expected to spend her holidays with some cousins, who were almost strangers to her.
Carol was so much pleased that she felt as if she must talk to somebody, so she turned to Ruth.
“Isn’t it delightful to think that we’ll all be going home in a fortnight?”
“Yes, very — for those that have homes to go to,” said Ruth drearily.
Carol felt a quick pang of pity and self-reproach. “Haven’t you?” she asked.
Ruth shook her head. In spite of herself, the kindness of Carol’s tone brought the tears to her eyes.
“My mother died a year ago,” she said in a trembling voice, “and since then I have had no real home. We were quite alone in the world, Mother and I, and now I have nobody.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry for you,” cried Carol impulsively. She leaned forward and took Ruth’s
hand in a gentle way. “And do you mean to say that you’ll have to stay here all through the holidays? Why, it will be horrid.”
“Oh, I shall not mind it much,” said Ruth quickly, “with study and practice most of the time. Only now, when everyone is talking about it, it makes me wish that I had some place to go.”
Carol dropped Ruth’s hand suddenly in the shock of a sudden idea that darted into her mind.
A stray girl passing through the hall called out, “Ruth, Miss Siviter wishes to see you about something in Room C.”
Ruth got up quickly. She was glad to get away, for it seemed to her that in another minute she would break down altogether.
Carol Golden hardly noticed her departure. She gathered up her letters and went abstractedly to her room, unheeding a gay call for “Golden Carol” from a group of girls in the corridor. Maud Russell was not in and Carol was glad. She wanted to be alone and fight down that sudden idea.
“It is ridiculous to think of it,” she said aloud, with a petulance very unusual in Golden Carol, whose disposition was as sunny as her looks. “Why, I simply cannot. I have always been longing to ask Maud to visit me, and now that the chance has come I am not going to throw it away. I am very sorry for Ruth, of course. It must be dreadful to be all alone like that. But it isn’t my fault. And she is so fearfully quiet and dowdy — what would they all think of her at home? Frank and Jack would make such fun of her. I shall ask Maud just as soon as she comes in.”
Maud did come in presently, but Carol did not give her the invitation. Instead, she was almost snappish to her idol, and the Princess soon went out again in something of a huff.
“Oh, dear,” cried Carol, “now I’ve offended her. What has got into me? What a disagreeable thing a conscience is, although I’m sure I don’t know why mine should be prodding me so! I don’t want to invite Ruth Mannering home with me for the holidays, but I feel exactly as if I should not have a minute’s peace of mind all the time if I didn’t. Mother would think it all right, of course. She would not mind if Ruth dressed in calico and never said anything but yes and no. But how the boys would laugh! I simply won’t do it, conscience or no conscience.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 606